A former Russian army colonel convicted in 2003 of killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman has been gunned down on the streets of Moscow.

Officials say Yuri Budanov was shot in the head four times in what appeared to be a contract-style killing. He died at the scene Friday.

The pistol and getaway car were found abandoned nearby.

Budanov had been jailed for 10 years for kidnapping and strangling Heda Kungayeva to death in a case that came to symbolize Russian army abuses in the war in Chechnya.

He was released early on parole in 2009.

Kungayeva's father said that Budanov's killing had nothing to do with the murder of his daughter, but described the incident as a “dog's death for a dog.”

Official investigators said the murder may have been aimed at provoking ethnic tensions between Russian nationalist groups and Chechens.